Thread by @RVAwonk

Look, I obviously know the circumstances are different, but there is a ton of overlap between what is going on now and the various iterations of the so-called campus free speech wars that we’ve seen for years. We know how this will unfold. Here’s a sneak preview.

The stories you hear in the media will be the most extreme examples that can be found, and nearly all of them will be fundamentally misrepresented based on the biases of the person telling the story. This will fuel a cycle of escalation that few people on either side want.

Just like we’ve seen the emergence of so-called war/conflict influencers, we are once again seeing the rise of the campus speech war influencer, and once you let those people take over, they’ll steer things towards the extremes because that’s where the attention they seek is.

And of course, along the way, the original motivation for these protests will be lost entirely, as partisans and culture warriors co-opt these campus protests and turn them into a vehicle for their own personal agenda, or worse, the malicious agenda of a hostile outside actor.

https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/1733640307210658245

There has been a coordinated & well-funded effort to destroy higher education in America for many years. The people behind this are clever & experienced, and they know how to attract new supporters by obscuring their destructive intent behind the veil of a righteous cause.

https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/1716242121982869593

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve seen me write about this topic. A lot.

The dynamics are different today, but the fundamental premise remains: College campuses are being turned into battlegrounds for a wholly asymmetric conflict; a billionaire proxy war.

https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/1641537804650815510

The groups that have coordinated the years-long campus culture wars even provide training on provocation, infiltration, media manipulation, & more.

Colleges do not. They’re totally unprepared b/c they don’t even know what they’re up against.

https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/1477391858141696001

When you look at the situation in its totality, it looks like colleges are being used as laboratories to test different models of repression, exclusion, & bigotry — & then the resulting intergroup conflict is used to learn how to most effectively stifle dissent.

I have so much more to say here and I’ll put it into an article, but it’s just stunning to watch this play out over & over again, and to know exactly how it will unfold next. Watch as they turn college students into the next antifa bogeyman. It’s coming; the media will eat it up.

So I guess my advice for now is, don’t let yourself become a tool of destruction used in a billionaire-backed effort to destroy the institutions that are standing in the way of their next power grab and challenging their ability to non-consensually shape our shared future.

https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/1733636322303103279

I witnessed a different iteration of this unfold from 2016-2018 on college campuses up-and-down the West Coast. I got to see how that laid the groundwork for the Proud Boys & Patriot Prayer, and how the same forces that brought them together, divided those who might fight back.

https://twitter.com/rvawonk/status/1051910400340582400

I rest my case.

https://twitter.com/scootercasterny/status/1783217110656655528

Also, yes, there are blatant & intentional efforts by malign inauthentic accounts to inflame the online discourse around the ongoing campus protests.

If you’re seeing stuff that looks “off” but you aren’t sure what it is, send it my way (DM or [e-mail]).